In a Name, a Date, and a First Love
by HuaFeiHua
Summary: Every time Sasha goes to the orthodontist to check on her braces, there's always this other kid there, too, who always asks her, "So, what're you in here for?" They've become friends over the years, but never learn one another's names. That is, until, Baldie asks her to meet him at the mall on Christmas Eve.
1. In a Name

**Word Count:** 2,407

* * *

Sasha pulled open the door to her orthodontist and stepped inside, shivering. She shook the few snowflakes that hadn't instantly melted upon entering the toasty warm building out of her reddish-brown ponytail and clomped over to the reception desk.

"Stupid inconvenience powder," she whispered as she pulled a fake flower out of the vase– a pen was attached to the end– and scribbled in her name and time of arrival on the sign-in pad.

The receptionist, who had come to recognize her after coming to this particular orthodontist for the last three years, month after month, took the pen back from her. "Why don't you let down your hair? You'd stay warmer."

Sasha vigorously shook her head. "Honor," was her only reply before she walked away plopped down on one of the multiple empty seats in the waiting room. It was almost empty. Other than herself, there was just a tired looking mother watching over her two young kids in the corner with the toys.

 _Huh_ , she thought, _Baldie isn't_ _here. That's unusual._

Baldie was the nickname she gave to the kid around her age who _always_ seemed to have orthodontic appointments at the _exact same time_ as she. It was equal parts creepy and amusing. For some reason, they had never given each other their names, but had become good friends during their once-a-month meetings at the dental office.

A blast of wintry air hit her in the face as the door opened again, stinging her nose and cheeks. Blinking, she glanced at who walked in. "About time!"

Baldie flashed a smile at her– she remembered when it was full of snaggle teeth and gaps, just like hers had been a couple years ago– before sauntering over to Sasha and plopping his butt down next to her. "So, Princess, what're you in here for?" he asked, his regular greeting that started their friendship and every conversation.

Sasha huffed, pretending to be offended at being called Princess, when in actuality she had gotten used to it after their third, seemingly coincidental, meeting. "Never mind _me_ , worry about yourself! Basketball shorts, _white t-shirt_! All the extra you've got on is a beanie over your bald-as-a-butt head!" She tugged on his hat for emphasis. "It's snowing outside! How are you not _freezing_?!"

He poked his tongue out of her, putting a hand up to his head to keep his beanie on. "Hey! At least I'm not wearing sandals! _And_ I have _some_ hair! It's just buzzed short," he answered.

Sasha snorted and tried to yank his beanie down over his eyes, but Baldie leaned back just in time. "That doesn't explain your mysterious lack of clothes."

"That sounded wrong."

"Shut up, you know what I meant."

Baldie suddenly sneezed. "It was a dare, actually. My friends are idiots. Bet me twenty bucks I couldn't go the day without actual snow clothes, and I mean, I'm not going to turn that down; I don't have much pocket money 'cuz my parents don't trust me with anything."

Sasha rolled her eyes. "I wonder why," she sarcastically said, giving him a pointed glare.

"Okay, I only lost your backpack _once_. Once!"

" _How_?"

" _And_ I found it before you got picked up!"

"Baldie, there is literally _no way_ to lose a backpack that big that fast! _I was only in the restroom for a minute_!"

"I know this isn't a library, and that you guys only see one another once a month, but I'm going to have to stop you two's voice raising before it gets to yelling. We're indoors. And there are children here, both of which can probably hear you loud and clear," the receptionist cut in.

"Sorry," Sasha and her friend whispered.

"And also–" the receptionist pointed at Sasha– "The orthodontist's ready for you."

"Gah! I'll be there in a sec!" She fished her phone out of her hoodie's kangaroo pocket and tossed it at Baldie. Though she didn't trust him with much, her phone was secondhand and pretty junky anyway. Besides, she didn't trust it around x-rays. "Don't lose it or else," she warned before darting away.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Princess."

"All right, Miss Braus, did you bring your retainers this time?" the orthodontist gently asked her after about fifteen minutes of waiting.

Sasha shoved her hand into her hoodie pocket, feeling around for her retainer case, but came up empty. She smiled sheepishly up at the doctor. "Sorry, ma'am, but I forgot them again."

The doctor sighed, exasperated, and lowered the chair Sasha was sitting in to let her out. "Reschedule your appointment at the reception desk, and for Pete's sake, _remember them next time_."

"Will do, ma'am!" she called back in reply as she hopped out of the dentist's chair and skittered out the door.

"Back so soon?" the receptionist asked, sounding only mildly surprised when Sasha showed up at the desk.

"Forgot my retainers," she explained, then felt a tap on her shoulder. When she turned around, Baldie was there, handing her back her phone. She smiled– and a little smugly, too, for no apparent reason– and took it gratefully back from him. "Good that you didn't lose it," she said as she took the little card with her next appointment written on it from the receptionist.

Baldie grinned back at her. "Like I said, wouldn't dream of it. Merry Christmas, Princess."

Sasha laughed and poked his cheek. "You too," she replied as she walked back out the snow. She opened it up, a flurry of snowflakes stinging her rapidly cooling cheeks, expecting it to be locked for the next half hour or so (since whenever she lent it to Baldie, it always came back locked and _almost_ always with the receptionist, but the latter was because he had his own appointment to go to), but it wasn't. Surprised, she typed in her passcode as she walked down the yet unshoveled sidewalk, and it let her in.

 _That's a first_ , she thought, now suspicious. She scrolled through her apps– they all seemed untouched, except that the phone icon had one new notification. She looked up, just to make sure of where she was headed, dodged a pole, and opened up the app, and the first thing she saw, right under her friend Annie's name was a new contact named _Baldie_ , with a grinning selfie of the bald boy himself in the waiting room as his picture.

"What?" she said aloud, just before she walked straight into a telephone pole from being so distracted. She looked around while rubbing her forehead, just to make sure that no one had witnessed what had just happened, then casually leaned against the pole, switching to the voicemail tab, where the notification was.

 _Baldie … 10:37 AM_

 _Mobile …... 0:30_

Now completely baffled, she opened it up.

" _Hey, Princess!_ " Baldie's voice chirped. " _I've been meaning to do this for a while. Uhh, I'm not sure how much time I have, so I'll keep it short. Uhhhh…_ " There was a brief pause as the usual pep slowly died out of his voice. " _I know we usually just hang out at the dentist waiting room, but, uh, could you meet me at the mall on, like, Saturday or something? You don't have to! It's just, uh… you know what? Just meet me there, if you can, at the Christmas tree in the center. I'll wait there 'till twelve-thirty. If you can go. It's okay if you can't. Okay-this-is-getting awkward– BYE!_ "

 _What?_ Sasha pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it again. She was very tempted to just play the voicemail again, but– _what?_ She played the voicemail again, shifting her weight around on her feet so that they wouldn't get so cold. It said the exact same thing as it did before. So she played it again and again, receiving the same message every time, until she practically had the message memorized.

 _Mall. Saturday. Twelve-thirty._

She had to admit, this situation had the most romantic potential out of any she had ever been in, though she doubted it would end up like that. After all, she and Baldie were just friends. Still, whenever she imagined something like this happening to her when she was younger, she thought her mind would be buzzing with excitement, with questions. Instead, it just repeated those three phrases over and over again:

 _Mall. Saturday. Twelve-thirty._

But Baldie wasn't exactly the boy her childhood self dreamed about. He wasn't tall and charming. Heck, he was four inches shorter than she and his charm, if you could call it that, came from his dumb jokes. Still, a stranger (ish), whom she barely knew (ish), wanted to meet with her outside of their regular place. She checked her phone for the date.

And on _Christmas Eve_?

Child Sasha would have fainted from excitement. This really did seem like something straight out of the climax of some cliché romance novel.

 _Mall. Saturday. Twelve-thirty._

She pocketed her phone and continued walking home through the snow, a little extra spring in her step.

 _Mall. Saturday. Twelve-thirty._

* * *

"Bye, Dad!" she said as she stepped out of her dad's truck into the cold. Her father simply nodded in acknowledgement and drove off, having work to do on their house for the afternoon, leaving Sasha standing in front of the town's small mall. She checked her phone: _12:03_ , it read.

 _I'll wait there 'till twelve-thirty_.

She played the voice mail again as she walked inside, even though she had it memorized at this point, _just in case_ she missed something the first million times she listened to it. It was exactly the same as the other million times, so she nervously stuffed it into her jacket pocket and looked up at the high, translucent ceiling and the decorations hanging down from it.

 _The Christmas tree in the center of the mall_.

Sasha rarely came to the mall in the first place– she preferred to get her clothes from thrift shops, and the trinket shops were overpriced– so she didn't really know her way around. Granted, the center of the mall was just that, the center, but she still had a bit of time to either spare or kill; it wouldn't hurt to look around a little bit. Plus, she hadn't been there since summer, for a hangout with her friends Annie and Mikasa, and was dying to try out a new little cheesecake restaurant she that she read about in the school newspaper.

She jangled a little as she walked, from a handful of coins she had brought with her (along with a small wad of cash) to spend, and it drew some stares from one or two nearby children. She poked her tongue out at them, then laughed.

She checked her phone again: _12:11_. Okay, that was enough of wandering around; she had to meet Baldie now.

She wove her way through the crowds, nervous energy building up in her belly full of butterflies, feeling more and more excited for what really was no good reason. Her legs began to skip and jump as she broke into a run, grinning as she latched onto a pole and spun around. She let out a laugh as she slowed to a stop; random strangers were staring rather blatantly at her, but she honestly didn't care. Feeling much more relaxed, she rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of the _enormous_ tree in the center of the mall.

She stopped completely just to take it all in– the metallic red, and gold globe ornaments hanging delicately on the boughs, the thin silver tinsel tangled in the branches, and of course, the star at the tippy top– before walking, almost as if on air, towards it. _Jingle Bell Rock_ played softly in the background, atop the many murmured conversations, and when added her overall calm and wonder, gave the entire room a surreal feeling.

When she finally tore her gaze away from the top of the tree and actually looked where she was going, she recognized Baldie hunched over on one of the benches in front of the tree. She grinned again, and silently sprinted (it wasn't easy to sprint silently, but Sasha had mastered it with a couple years of practice) the rest of the way. She slowed down a few feet away and crept up behind him.

" _Boo_."

Baldie jumped up and turned around, looking wildly around until his eyes settled on the laughing Sasha. He cracked a smile right back at her and picked his phone up off the ground, checking to see if it was cracked.

"You're just lucky this place is carpeted," he said as he sat down at a different angle so that he could face her.

Sasha flopped down over the back of the bench. "So," she began. "What're we in for, Baldie?"

"Anything you wanna do, Princess?"

Sasha slid off the bench, got up, and sat on it, though this time she sat on the arm next to him. "Maybe some introductions? After all, we've known each other for three years and are still using nicknames. M'name's Sasha."

Baldie paused for a second. "You know, I'd say that Prince Charming is never named in any of those princess movies, but _then_ … there's _The Little Mermaid_. Curse ye, Eric."

Sasha laughed and leaned on him, using his head as an armrest. "So what's your name, Baldie?"

He ducked so that she couldn't use him as her armrest anymore, scooting a good few inches away so that she couldn't do it again. "Connie," he cheerfully answered.

"Connie?"

"Connie. Sasha?"

"Sasha."

They were quiet for a minute, letting each others' names sink in.

"You know, after three years of nicknames, it feels so _weird_ knowing your real name," Sasha finally said.

"Yeah, I know. It feels like a nickname instead of a real name."

Sasha snorted. "Baldie."

Connie poked his tongue back out at her. "Princess."

* * *

 _ **Author's Note i.** Springles just doesn't get enough love. I mean, they're in the background of every fic, but the center of none. So I wrote this. Part two coming out... soon. Leave a follow or favorite if you enjoyed (or don't; I'm not your mother), and happy holidays!~_


	2. A Date, and a First Love

**Word Count:** 3,688

* * *

The two sat face-to-face at a table for two at Starbucks. Sasha gently swung her legs back and forth while on their too-tall chairs, sipping ice water and propping her chin up on her hands. "So, Baldie," she nonchalantly began. "What're we in here for?"

Connie leaned forward, his cheeks tinted a slighter shade of pink than they usually were, though since Sasha dared not hope, she assumed it was because of how stuffy the coffee shop was compared to the rest of the mall.

"I was just thinking that since we only ever see each other at the dental office, once one of us gets our braces off or moves away, we wouldn't be able to be friends anymore, and that's kinda a weird thought," he replied. "I mean, we've seen each other with such regularity for the last couple years. It'd be kind of weird if we just… lost touch like that. You're pretty cool, after all."

Sasha snorted slightly. " _Pretty_ cool?"

He grinned back at her. "All right, really cool."

She laughed a little again, reaching across the table to gently, playfully push his shoulder. "You're not so bad yourself, Baldie. Enough to miss if you suddenly disappeared on me."

"Good to know, Princess."

Sasha paused for a second. "Why _did_ you pick to call me Princess? I mean, it's not bad, better than my other nickname Po–" She caught herself just in time. No, she couldn't talk about that; it was her less-than-proud legacy that stemmed from an incident in middle school, but she'd be damned if she actually let it get out farther than it already was.

"Potato Girl?"

She groaned, head sinking down to the table. _How had he known? ? ?_ "Yeah." She glanced up at Connie, curious at his reaction.

He solemnly nodded. "So that story was about you," he said, stroking some imaginary beard hairs.

Sasha sat up straight again, surprised that he wasn't poking fun at her. "You've heard it?" she asked, partially pleased that she had become somewhat of a legend, but also terrified at the thought of never being able to escape the name.

"Yeah. This kid named Jean told me about it a while back."

 _Jean. Of course it was him. He could never keep his mouth shut._ Sasha heaved an exasperated sigh before taking an angry sip of water to calm her down. The sharp cold snapped her brain out of its sinking slumber from the warmth of the coffee shop. "You know Jean?"

"Er, yeah. We're friends. Kind of. I mean, it's not like he has that many to start with so I guess I count? I assume you know him, too?"

"He was part of my squad back in middle school, before we all had to go to different high schools and stuff. Our district didn't have its own for some reason, so yeah," she explained. "Me, Annie, Reiner, Ymir, and him hung out a lot back then. We called him horse-face a lot, so this one time, he brought one of those rubber horse head-mask-things to school and wore it while giving us piggyback rides around the blacktop. That is, of course, until this lunch lady we called the Frog Lady made us stop, but no one liked the Frog Lady anyway so we kept on doing it until Ymir took advantage of his near-blindness and ran him into a pole."

She grimaced at the memory of the shorter freckled girl laughing her head off while the tall and gangly Jean stumbled around, rubbing his forehead with one hand and clutching the horse mask with the other.

"Isn't Ymir too heavy for that kind of thing? She's, like, six feet tall or something."

Sasha almost choked on her water. "She's _how_ tall? ?"

Connie blinked at her and slowly reached for a napkin, probably in case she spewed. "Five-foot-nine…? Five-eight? I can't recall, she hasn't been measured in a while."

Sasha sat in stunned silence for what felt like forever, trying to process the fact that her midget freckled friend was now taller than her. "But– but– but–! She was so _tiny_! Like, five foot _flat_ at the end of eighth grade, I _swear_."

Connie raised an eyebrow at her as he sipped more of his own ice water. "And you haven't seen her since then? I thought you guys were a squad."

"Well, I mean, yeah, we were, but keeping in touch when going to different high schools is kind of hard sometimes when you start making new friends and have a pile of homework to do every day. I haven't seen her since summer going into sophomore year." She leaned back in her chair and stared lackadaisically at the ceiling. "I can't belieeeve thiiis," she groaned.

"Believe it, Sash. Puberty: it's a magical thing."

Sasha sat up straight again, laughing, and absently turned on her phone. "And I suppose you expect me to believe that you've yet to hit your growth spurt and that you're going to end up taller than me."

"I'm five-foot-six, so starting my growth spurt now would be a little iffy."

"No you're not, that's _my_ height and _you're_ a midget. We compared our heights, like, two years ago. I was waaay taller." She opened up Pokémon Go– though the hype had died down months and months ago, she still secretly enjoyed playing it despite her laggy phone– and waited for it to load.

"Two years is a long time," Connie pointed out. "And I slouch a lot."

She raised one of her own eyebrows at him. "No way you're my height now. No way."

Baldie laughed lightheartedly at her. "Believe it, Princess."

Sasha's jaw dropped, then closed again as she practically snorted out steam, then opened and closed again like a fish as she searched for words before finally settling on a disbelieving laugh. She flopped backwards in her chair again, breathily laughing at the ceiling. "Everyone's taller than me. I used to be tallest now everyone's just as tall or taller than me," she wheezed, unable to talk properly. "Next thing you know Annie's going to hit some kind of second growth spurt and be taller than me too."

"Annie was one of the people in your old squad, right?" Connie asked as she sat up properly again. She glanced at her phone and sighed quietly. _Still loading._

She nodded and chewed on her straw. "She and I were the only ones to go to Maria out of the five of us. It was a little lonely at first, but we have our own little friend group now, too." She stuck her tongue out as she thought about how they had all first met, followed by a brief silence.

"Penny for your thoughts?" He innocently asked her.

"Ah, just thinking about how Annie and I met our newer friends," she answered. Connie leaned forward, inviting her to tell the tale.

She swirled her leftover ice around in the cup. "I was jumping around on the drain where the school's old fountain apparently stood as she was just sitting nearby, quietly eating her sandwich, when this girl with black hair sprinted by, dragging these two dudes behind her, one blond, one brunet, both of which were yelling something incoherent.

"I was curious and excited, so I yelled something to Annie, grabbed her arm as she was taking a bite of her food, and started sprinting after the three of them, with no idea about what they were doing and no plans for what would happen when we found out."

As she talked, she glanced down at her phone: _Do not enter dangerous places while playing Pokémon Go_ , it warned. She tapped the _Okay_ button and glanced at sightings. The shadowy outline of a tall, roundish pokémon she hadn't caught yet.

"Uhuh, and then what happened?" Connie asked after she stopped talking, genuinely curious, but she had already forgotten about the story.

"CONNIE DO YOU PLAY _POKÉMON GO_? ?" Sasha said in a far louder voice than she intended.

A nearby clique of girls chatting over their coffees glared up at her as she practically fell off her counter stool and yanked the bald boy away off with her, barely giving him time to snatch his phone off the counter before dragging him out of the store.

"UH, A LITTLE BIT," he answered, replicating her volume as she pulled him along at a speed he didn't expect her to be able to achieve, turning his phone on and opening up the game himself. "WHY?"

"THERE'S A DRAGONITE NEARBY! !" she yelled in reply, eyes glued to her phone. The dozen or so coins in her pockets clinked loudly and distinctly against each other, making it sound almost as though she were hooked up to a one-horse open sleigh covered in jingle bells.

"HOLY CRAP, _REALLY_? ? ?" he yelped, picking up his pace so that she no longer had to pull him forward.

"YUUUP!" Sasha spared a glance up and narrowly avoided a pole and the small child that was kitty-corner to it. She looked down at her phone just as it vibrated: _The pokémon has fled!_

She skidded to a stop, softly swore, and started sprinting in the opposite direction. The Dragonite appeared again on her sightings list and she subconsciously sped up, only aware of Connie behind her by his loud footsteps following her.

She slowed again to let her avatar catch up after a second of lagging, then changed the compass setting so that the map changed with the direction her phone was pointed, and saw she was near the same pokéstop as the Dragonite. Glancing up, she pointed her phone in the direction of a nearby Forever 21 and started sprinting again.

She slid around on the tiles with her worn shoes, rapidly changing directions often to avoid other customers and clothing racks before stopping in front of a photo booth. Panting, she leaned against the side of the booth and waited for the pokémon to show up on her phone.

"Holy cow," Connie wheezed from a few feet away just a couple seconds later, leaning against a square pillar covered in mirrors. "You can run a _lot_ faster than I expected." He slid down so that he sat on the ground with his back to the mirror pillar. Their phones simultaneously vibrated as the Dragonite spawned.

Sasha tiredly grinned down at him as she tapped on it. "It's been six months and I still haven't caught a Dragonite. Of course I'd sprint," she breathed as she too slid down to the ground.

Breathing heavily, the two sat in silence as they spammed their respective Dragonites with pokéballs.

"Caught it," Baldie said after several minutes. He exhaled loudly. "Need help, Princess?"

Sasha grit her teeth. Admittedly, she did need help. She was out of Ultra Balls and constantly missing her throws was sending her stress levels through the roof. "No, I'm fine."

"Aaare you sure? You look like you could use some help."

She missed again, fanning her internal flame of rage. Her aim was usually impeccable; she had no idea why it was so abhorrent at the moment. "No, I got this."

"If you say so."

A minute later, they repeated the conversation.

A minute after that, they repeated it again.

"You're absolutely _sure_?"

Sasha could feel her anger and stress rising up into her head, clouding her reflexes. She checked her bag. Just a handful of Great Balls remained. With an exasperated sigh, she shoved her phone into Connie's hand and looked up, regulating her breathing so she could clear her mind.

"Gotcha," he muttered, typing in a nickname and handing it back to her. She took it, along with a few more calming breaths, and looked at it.

"You named it 'Orange Booty.'"

He grinned at her. "Yup."

She playfully pushed him again. "I can't believe you."

Connie sprang up and laughed. "Well _I_ can."

Sasha looked back at her phone, then turned it off and pocketed it. _That's enough of that for today_ , she decided. "Now what?"

Connie looked back at his fingers and started counting stuff off on them to himself. "I think you were telling me a story at Starbucks."

Sasha cracked her knuckles. "About how I met my friends, right?"

"Yup. It would be nice to hear the end of that." He extended a hand out to her.

She gratefully took it and he pulled her up. "Not here, though. I get the feeling the manager or whoever's going to kick us out if we keep loitering. And, I'm pretty sure I almost knocked over a mannequin running in here and I'd quite like to get as far away as I can from said mannequins so I can forget that ever happened."

"There's a bench on the roof floor that's never taken," he suggested.

She grinned at him. "Well then what are we waiting for, Baldie? Let's go!"

* * *

Sasha kicked at the slippery slush half frozen to the concrete floor in front of the bench she and Connie now sat on. It was no wonder that it was never taken: being barely under the eaves meant that rain ran onto the shoes of those who sat on it, and that icy slush built up around and beneath the bench during the winter. But it was quaint and cozy, hidden snugly between another wall and a planter of dianthuses, and partially behind yet another planter with poplar saplings inside.

"So. You're telling me you met your friends because you ran after them while they were trying to get away from the administrators' golf carts because they walked off campus… to see the ice cream man?" Connie said with disbelief.

"That's the gist of it, yes. I also forgot to mention that I had to do the Heimlich Maneuver on Annie while we were hiding in the bathroom because I accidentally made her choke and, well, she still hasn't really forgiven me for all this because she got roped into the two weeks' worth of detentions that came with running from the administrators, _BUT_ on the bright side, we all got ice cream after school that day, so I think it all worked out in the end," Sasha cheerfully told him.

"Man, you wanna know how I met _Jean_? He passed me by when I was coming out of PE and said he needed someone to go with him into the maid café because his friend Marco was out sick that day for some reason and he didn't want to look weird going alone."

Sasha looked at Connie with complete and utter _shock_. "Your school has a _maid café_?"

He crossed his arms and leaned back on the bench. "Yeah. The anime club has one every year as a fundraiser."

" _Did you go with him? ?_ "

"Hell yeah, I did. Free food because I got Marco's ticket. But I still regret the first five minutes of the café. There was a line of maids on one side of a fake red carpet covered in fake, pink, white, and red rose petals, a line of butlers on the other side, and they bowed down to us and yelled 'ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU' as we walked down the aisle. Now _that_ was embarrassing." He shook his head.

Sasha grimaced and nodded in sympathy.

"The food was all way too mild and they ran out of everything by the time our maid came back for us. Well, by the time a new maid found us without an entreé because our first maid forgot us. We started calling ourselves 'The Lonely Table' because it was just me and Jean getting forgotten by all the maids and butlers," he finished, a small smile creeping across his lips at the fond memory. "And that's how I met Jean and found out he was a narccisstic weeaboo at the same time."

Sasha let out a long whistle, and was about to comment on the story when they both heard loud laughter accompanying two sets of feet traipsing through the snow towards them.

" _You're suuure no one is ever there?_ " a high-pitched, girlish voice sang.

" _Yeah, and someone hangs up mistletoe there every year, so it's perfect_ ," a much deeper and more masculine voice gently replied.

Sasha tensed up. _People! Well, at least they won't come he–_

A tall, dark-skinned, dark-haired boy rounded the corner of the poplar planter with a much smaller, freckle-smattered, ginger-haired girl hanging off his arm and laughing a tinkly, bell-like laugh.

All four teenagers completely froze, staring deadpan at each other.

" _Weeell_ , Franz, it looks like some other couple's beaten us to the spot," the ginger awakardly said, poorly breaking the silence when, in all honesty, it should have been left as it was. "Let's just, uh, head back inside and get some cotton candy…"

The boy blinked suddenly, then shook his head as his apparent girlfriend tugged on his arm. "Uh, yeah. Sorry about the intrusion." He gave the two of them a halfhearted, crooked smile before backing out of their snug little corner.

Sasha let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, letting it fog up in her face, as did Connie. Then, wordlessly, both looked up at the eaves out of their own accord and saw that there was indeed a rather _large_ sprig of mistletoe hanging down overtheir heads.

All of a sudden, the chilling bite of a winter breeze didn't seem to bite her cheeks anymore.

She quickly lowered her gaze, too mortified to look at Baldie. Her heart was going at what felt like a thousand miles an hour, pounding against her chest and reminding her of the reasons she decided to come to the mall today anyway.

Sure, she had _dreamt_ of this kind of thing happening, getting caught under the mistletoe with a guy she only sort of knew, but she was just now realizing that dreams and reality don't always coincide quite _that_ neatly.

"I… uh…"

Her face grew even warmer as she stubbornly stared at the bench's arm and the snowflakes that managed to land on it.

Nothing in the world could have made such an awkward silence more awkward. A bird cheerfully twittered in a branch nearby, even though logically speaking it shouldn't be in the snow at all, getting its little feathers dusted in snow.

All the while, her mind kept spinning, kept telling her that everything was okay, and that everything was going to work out.

"Uhh…"

" _We don' hafta kiss if y' don' wan' to_ ," she blurted out before he could say anything, still refusing to look at anything but the small snow pile. Her boot scraped loudly against the slushy ground as her foot vainly tried to push her closer to the back of the bench. In her head, she repeatedly kicked herself for letting her accent slip in front of him.

"What?"

Sasha took a silent, calming breath and repeated herself, enunciating much more this time as her cheeks practically burned into ash. "We don't have to kiss if you don't want to."

Another pause.

 _Well, at the very least, all these pauses are letting me calm down between heart attacks_.

"I, uh… guess this is a good time to say that I… really like you?" Connie hesitantly said, though it ended up sounding more like a question than an explicit statement.

Now it was Sasha's turn to be surprised. She looked up, blinking a couple times to clear her vision of the tunnel that seemed to be forming around the snow pile. "What?"

"I like you?" he repeated, just as unsure as the first time.

"You… _like_ me." She still didn't look at him, now more out of disbelief than mortification, but still embarrassed.

"I… _like_ you." At the very least, it didn't sound like a question anymore.

"You like me? As in, _like_ -like me? Or just like as in friend?"

"For Pete's sake, just look at me!"

Heart now seemingly beating not at all, she turned to face him. His face was as cherry red as hers felt, if not more.

"I. Really, really, really, _really._ Like. _You_ ," he said, very slowly, very deliberately, almost as though he were speaking to a child.

"Romantically!?"

"Romantically."

Sasha's brain was hard-pressed to process this new information as her heart, at the very least, came back to life.

" _What_?!"

"Do I have to repeat myself _again_? ?"

"No, I heard you, just _what_? ? There's an ongoing joke among my friends and I that I'm the kind of girl you have to admire from afar otherwise you'd either hear me or get robbed by me! Just. Wow! I can't! I can't believe this! Well, yes I _can_ , I just _can't_ _believe this_!" She gasped dramatically. "Is _that_ why you nicknamed me Princess? ? ? ?"

Connie's face, still just as red as before, broke into a crazy grin and he started to laugh. "Maybe," he teased.

Sasha gasped again and overwhelmed with new energy, started kicking the slush on the ground. " _Is this a date_?"

"Only if you want it to be."

She grinned back at him. "We're on a date," she dreamily said.

They both looked up at the mistletoe above their heads again. Instead of being a source of surprise and embarrassment, as it had been just a few minutes ago, it made Sasha feel strangely giddy inside.

They lowered their gazes again and locked eyes.

Slowly, they leaned closer and closer together.

Sasha closed her eyes.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note ii.** Aight. So. It's been a long time. Over a month and a half, in fact, since I've published even a word. I can explain. Not really. Part of it was laziness part of it was because my wi-fi started cutting out at 10:00 PM for reasons and I only like to work when I'm along but I'm only ever alone after 10 at night and ahhhhhhh. And I've been running a couple Tumblr blogs and going through a lot of psychiatric testing for Things Other Than ADHD. Yup. I've been busy. My original plan was to get this out before the end of January, but well. You can all see how well that worked out hehehehe. I was actually pretty meh about finishing it up and then someone was like 'hey you should keep writing this i need to know moarrr' and i was like awwww how could i let them down. (i let them down c rap it's past january whoopsie daisies). But HEY it's Valentine's Day, may as well finish up the thing so I can feel like I am a productive writer! ! ! ! Yeah! ! ! ! ! ! Anyway. Me being a bad writer aside, I hope you enjoyed this two-shot! I kept the kiss at the end ambiguous-ish because I was too lazy to write about something that has never happened to me and too tired to research it. Anyway, fave or something if you liked it that much! Leave your thoughts in the reviews (if that's what you're into), and as always, have a greaaat daaaayyy~~~_


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